I remember a story about a guy who made big prints, up to a metre, and people believed he was using medium format and admired the sharpness, often asking what the lens was. His answer: An old Canon AE-1 35mm and a Canon 70 - 210 zoom.
He went on to point out the importance of things like correct exposure and processing, and choosing the right lighting, using a tripod, etc. This produces an "apparent sharpness", which is clearly extremely important because it´s what you or the viewer will react to, and may not be directly related to the technical "resolving" power of the lens.

More importantly where? All lenses suffer diffraction which makes them less sharp at higher apertures, and in ideal situations kit lenses like the Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 is every bit as sharp as the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8.

Every lens has a sharp sweet spot that would hit the performance limit of most sensors, and every lens suffers diffraction too, so there is no "sharpest" lens.

Legend has it that the Zeiss Biogon lenses are "the sharpest ever made," particularly the medium format ones, but I've also heard stunning things about the Biogon series manufactured for the Contax 35mm systems. Reportedly, the MF biogons even put Leica glass to shame.

I remember a story about a guy who made big prints, up to a metre, and people believed he was using medium format and admired the sharpness, often asking what the lens was. His answer: An old Canon AE-1 35mm and a Canon 70 - 210 zoom.
He went on to point out the importance of things like correct exposure and processing, and choosing the right lighting, using a tripod, etc. This produces an "apparent sharpness", which is clearly extremely important because it´s what you or the viewer will react to, and may not be directly related to the technical "resolving" power of the lens.

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Apparent sharpness is a matter of contrast and is independent of lens construction/resolution. All things being equal, increasing "apparent contrast" will produce a sharper image with a better lens.